Year 3

Year 3 immersed themselves into the experience of living as if they were in the Stone Age. All the usual tools and equipment were taken away leaving all things natural for the children to create from.

In the morning session the children experienced what life would have been like in the very early Stone Age - early humans would have lived in caves and would have had to be skilled in hunting and gathering food. Wild animals would have dominated and humans would have had to have been agile and great climbers.

Berries and fruits were gathered as they would have been and were used to make simple colours to paint with inside the caves, mud paint was mixed and applied using sticks. Stones were used to make simple etchings too.

The children were able to handle different rocks and worked out which ones would be best used for simple cutting tools. The children then went onto make more advanced hunting tools by tying the stones onto wood using ivy and willow. They soon realised this would not have been easy in the Stone Age with no one demonstrate.

We all had fun communicating without words and created a type of early language all of our own.

The afternoon session saw the children exploring the process by which fire would have been created for the first time. They created heat from the friction of rubbing 2 sticks, and considered how long it would have taken to create and actual fire!

They were able to take advantage of modern fire steels to create sparks which with a great amount of perseverance and teamwork created a small established fire!

The children were then able to think about the about the incredible impact fire would have had on the life of our early ancestors, allowing them to live outside the caves in simple shelters, develop simple communities, protect from wild beasts, provide welcomed warmth, as well offering the major benefits of cooking food!!

However, everyone certainly agreed that life would have been very tough for our Stone Age ancestors!